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3.24.2012

Next, El Bulli

The frenzy for people clamoring for tickets to one of Chicago's top restaurants, Next, never ends. Yes, I did say tickets. Even before Next officially opened its doors last year, it had already made headlines across the country by reinventing the dining experience where diners purchase tickets to dine at the restaurant. The concept is just like how someone would buy tickets to a concert or football game. Table prices differ based on the day of the week and time of seating. Owned by one of America's genius chef, Grant Achatz, Next features a changing menu that focuses on a different cuisine and experience that change every four months. Next prides itself for not only its exceptional food but the entire experience.

It sure sounds like a pretty doable system except that it is very very hard to get tickets to dine at Next. We were extremely lucky to get tickets for their first menu (Paris 1906) and second menu (Tour of Thailand) and were left extremely impressed. Unfortunately we did not score tickets for the third menu with the theme of Childhood. The fourth time's a charm for us and we were lucky enough to get tickets for the El Bulli menu.

El Bulli restaurant in Spain officially closed its doors in 2011. Run by the legendary Ferran Adria, his restaurant El Bulli made it to the list of World's 50 Restaurants no less than five times in the last ten years. If that wasn't enough credentials, Ferran Adria won the Chef of the Decade award and his restaurant was recognized as the Best Restaurant in Europe in 2009. He greatly influenced the art and science of cooking and dining, hence it was only fitting that there is a tribute to celebrate the best of El Bulli's past 29 years. With Ferran Adria's blessings, the genius Chef Grant Achatz decided that his revolving-themed restaurant, Next, was going to celebrate and recreate the sense of El Bulli. Ferran Adria's sous chef flew to Chicago to meet with the kitchen team at Next to provide advice during the process of Next perfecting the 29-course El Bulli menu which is meant to represent the best dish from each of the 29 years. Though it will never fully recreate the sense of El Bulli, it was nothing short of a very good execution from the Next team. Most importantly, it gave us the opportunity to experience vicariously El Bulli, especially for us who have never been and will never get to.

*Course #1:Liquid nitrogen Caipirinha with tarragon concentrate*

*Course #2: Hot/Cold trout roe tempura*

*Course #3: Avocado pear, anchovies, and green onion*

*Course #4: Olive juice*

*Course #5: Iberico sandwich*

These were added to our drinks pairing for added flavors

*Course #6: Golden egg*

*Course #7: Chicken liquid croquettes*

A bite into the croquette and chicken liquid burst forth

*Course #8: Smoke foam*

A drop was added to our drinks pairing to create another type of flavor

Cindy, my crab allergy is iffy because I've not had any problems with crabs but the allergy test results showed positive to Alaskan king crab specifically. A false positive, maybe, but two different tests came back positive for Alaskan king crab. Maybe it's two false positives?